Spiritual Aesthetics: Part IV

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This series of posts is, in some ways, an excellent example of the on-going creative process I have been discussing. Publishing each part before I've definitively finished the series as a whole, I find myself often back-tracking and returning to previously discussed ideas in order to clarify before I can move forward again (for instance, I found in the last post a need to continue the in-depth exploration of aesthetics that I had begun in Part II); however, each return, each clarification, is guided by my overall original goal to explore the role of irony in both art and spirituality. Although I had intended Part III to be the final post in this series, in which I finally reached that goal, it reached its natural conclusion (and reasonable length) without arriving. This time, though, I mean to get there.

So: irony. Let's get right down to it.

Irony in Creative Practice

We left off in the last post having developed two fairly useful working descriptions (with handy-dandy diagrams!) of both the scientific and aesthetic creative processes. Plenty of you have probably anticipated where this discussion is headed and have already been pondering the way in which magic, prayer and other spiritual practices fit these models, so I won't belabor some of the more subtle implications here. Abiding by my previous supposition that aesthetics offers a more satisfying metaphor and enlightening comparison for such practices than the scientific method can provide, I would point out what to me seems to be the essential point of clarification, which is: a "work of magic" is not the same as and cannot be identified with either the ritual act or objects of the magical working, or the resulting experiences of the practitioners or recipients of that work. Like a work of art, which cannot be equated merely with either the art object or the experiences it produces, so too does the "magic" itself exist in some kind of difficult-to-define space in between, drifting in and out of potential, acting on and shaping experiences in a mutual exchange.

This new way of understanding the actual "work" of prayer or magic, I believe, resolves the main stumbling block that leads to a sense of irony; it also brings us to a new understanding of what exactly that irony is that deo and others have such difficulty in overcoming. If we look again at the diagram of scientific method, we see that in the place of the more internal and subjective "experience" in the aesthetic process, instead we have "results" in the external world, quantifiable and verifiable through repeated experiments. The relationship between experiment and results, in other words, is always clear and causal in only one direction; whatever the hypotheses that led to the experiment or the conclusions drawn from its subsequent results, the scientist can at least rely on a linear and consistent relationship between the two mind-external aspects of the one-way cycle. But disrupt this cycle, and the whole process falls to pieces.

The difficulty that deo perceives in magical work is precisely the disruption of this causality. Magic and prayer, if they are to mimic a well-constructed scientific experiment, should not only have "results" (rather than mere subjective interpretations of experience) but those results should proceed in a relevant and repeatable manner from specific activities incited in the world beyond our own minds. But the reality is that magic does not work this way at all. At one point during podcast episode #38, deo jokes that the only time two identical spells ever produce the exact same results are if both of them fail to work. (Of course, if we consider art rather than scientific experiment as the more helpful metaphor for magic, we quickly come to understand that spells (and prayers) can fail to work in almost as many ways as they can succeed, depending on the cultural and historical contexts, for instance, and the individuals involved.) Insisting that there is a relationship between magical "experiments" and their "results" similar to the one we find in science, without being able either to describe how that relationship actually works or to produce intended results with any consistency, pushes us into the realm of the ironic, where the disjoint between reality and our expectations or beliefs about reality are distinctly at odds. In short, our sense of irony arises when we correctly perceive that a "work of magic" is not reasonably identified with either the act or the experience, but we willfully ignore this perception because we have no satisfactory alternative explanations.

Since I have provided one, I seem to have once and for all solved the problem of irony.

Just kidding! Actually, by turning our attention once again to art and aesthetics, we discover a plethora of further insights into the matter. Take the concept of "dramatic irony," for example. In dramatic irony, the relative ignorance of the characters in a story is played against the broader knowledge of the audience. The tragedy of Oedipus, for instance, is tragic precisely because we, as an experienced audience familiar with the story and "in" on earlier events forgotten by the protagonist, can see the tragedy coming and the ways in which, with a slight turn of circumstance, it could be prevented. Of course, dramatic irony must be artfully done in order to be effective; a character who is simply too silly or too apathetic to struggle towards knowledge is unlikely to capture an audience's attention. Indeed, it is precisely those characters most concerned with seeking knowledge and awareness (though often they look in all the wrong places) who best provoke a sense of dramatic irony. This is because irony as an aesthetic device not only works with, but calls attention to and relies on the distinction between the "art object" and the audience's experience of it. Rather than seek a linear causal relationship between the two, they are deliberately put into tension with one another. One aspect of this tension is that the art object is governed by its own internally-consistent "rules" and their results, so to speak (these may come from the physical nature of the medium, as mentioned before, as well as established cultural conventions, etc.), and yet the audience engages with these causalities subjectively and imaginatively, as veritable "outsiders," sometimes even seeking (as in dramatic irony especially) a way to circumvent them.

Another example of irony, which can be turned to either tragic or comedic effect, is verbal irony. Here we have an exciting overlap between aesthetics and magic: the ancient Celtic use of satire. To quote (shamefacedly) from Wikipedia: "The essential point is that 'in satire, irony is militant'. This 'militant irony' (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack." Once again, we have a deliberate tension cultivated between the art object as apparent praise or celebration, and the artist's intention and audience's experience of just the opposite. The "work" of art and its satirical nature relies on and exists within this disjoint or disruption. The ancient Celtic bards utilized this tension not only for aesthetic, but also for magical purposes. That is, they engaged in magical practices (in this case, composing poetic verse) with an inherent sense of irony, a willful disconnect between action and result (one that usually echoed the faults and failures of the subject of the satire) that in a scientific experiment would have rendered the process meaningless.

I think that modern practitioners of magic and prayer can take heart from the example set by these bards of old, approaching their spiritual work comfortable with their own sense of skepticism and even with a bit of humor. While a "fake it 'til you make it" approach to the scientific method fundamentally compromises the cycle of discovery, the give-and-take nature of aesthetic creativity provides us with an approach to spiritual practice that is more stable, and thus more flexible (as John M. Greer always says, a Druid takes two opposites in tension and seeks to resolve them not by settling for a compromise, but by finding a new, third aspect; that is essentially what this whole series has attempted to do). So what if, for now, your experiences of the power of magic are shaped mostly by your own expectations, or your prayer requests are themselves manifestations of conflicts and obstacles of which you are only subconsciously aware? The fluid relationships between these three aspects of spiritual work ensure that any honest, persistent effort made in one direction will ultimately engage and reaffirm all three.

Note of possible interest: For the last three or so paragraphs of this post, I've had an increasingly intense sensation of deja vu which has made it difficult to finish writing. Has anyone already written this before (or have I)? On the other hand, this may simply be because I'm tired and have contemplated these ideas to near exhaustion over the past week and a half. I hope this series has been interesting. I now return you to your regularly scheduled spontaneity.

Amusing Anecdotal Interlude (Or: Aai!)

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"Things are going well, " I said, breathless with the cold as I walked home from my dentist appointment and a late lunch at the vegan restaurant down the street.

"Anything new?" my father asked on the other end of the phone. I could hear him shuffling papers as he sat in his cozy office in the county courthouse on the other side of Pennsylvania.

"Well, I've been writing a lot, keeping my New Year's Resolution to write something other than journaling every day. I'm working on a series in my blog right now that I'm thinking of maybe trying to expand into a book. A lot of people seem really interested in the topic, and it seems like I have a lot to say about it..."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. As I turned the corner into the wind, my scarf slapped gently against my shoulder and a piece of hair escaped from under my knit hat and found its way down between my eye and the lens of my glasses. I hate when that happens. I fumbled at the tiny cell phone with my clumsy gloved hands.

"Is that that Druid stuff?"

"Yeah, one of the blog's readers is the author of that book I lent you a while back, remember? The 'one with the funny name.' And he says he might be able to help me find a publisher for a manuscript if I put one together. I'm actually kind of excited about it."

"Yeah, well, that sounds nice." My father's tone reminded me of Dane Cook's dad being interviewed about his son's success. ("Yeah, well, I guess he makes a living, anyway, for just fooling around," was Mr. Cook's deadpan response. Not that I'm as wildly awesome as Dane Cook, of course.)

"I could have a book published. That's kind of a big deal, Dad," I said into the phone. "Sound more excited." My parents--my mother especially--are hugely proud of my younger brother, who recently landed a position with a small but major marketing research company. For them, it's all about who you know and what they're willing to pay you, not really what it is you actually do.... They're still not entirely sure what my brother does. On the other hand, they grasp the concept of "waiting tables" and "spouting off on some webpage that anybody could just read" fairly well.

"O, no, of course that's nice, yeah," my father said in an entirely unconvincing, but still endearing voice. "So," he said, "what is this, like, just basically taking environmental and nature stuff and having it be your religion?"

I rolled my eyes and huffed a cloud of warm breath out into the wind. I don't ask him things like, "So, this Christianity stuff, it's like human cannibalism and magic virgins and all that?" Of course I know better, I was raised to know better. Over my Christmas vacation when I visited home, we even had an extended conversation about Druidry and why I'd decided to officially leave the Catholic Church and stop taking communion at Mass (it'd be a violation of the community's trust in the whole 'one body in Christ' thing, I'd explained). I teased him about how I only get frustrated with politics and money-grubbing because I take Jesus more seriously than he does (and that if Jesus were living today, he'd probably be a Druid, too).

"Did you read the book I lent you, Dad?"

"Which one, the one about the oak tree, or the one about crows?"

Of all the books I've lent him over the years, he remembers these two: the latter, a semi-scientific naturalist book on corvids he borrowed almost two years ago; the former, a kind of sociological "history of the oak tree and human civilization" I lent him a year and a half earlier. So let's hear it for Pagany stereotypes!

"No, Dad, the one about Druidry. All the 'Celtic metaphysic' stuff and how it relates to modern Druidic spirituality and philosophy..."

"I never really got around to it."

"Well, anyway, the point is, I could get something actually published. So... not wasting my life over here. Good, right?" This was just me fishing for compliments. Usually it provoked an all-your-mother-and-I-want-is-for-you-to-be-happy-and-healthy response.

"Good, that's good," my dad said. For a moment, the wind on my end died down and I could hear in the background the general-office-noise murmuring on his end of the line. I remember visiting the courthouse when I was little, the huge echoing marble halls, that led into unexpectedly small, modest, dare I say even cheap-looking offices of cubicles and bulletin boards and messy desks. The realm of the twenty-five-years-loyal-service county juvenile probation officer. "So, what is this stuff about then?"

"See, if you'd read the book, you'd know, wouldn't you?" That got a laugh and he knew I was teasing him again. "But really, what I'm getting into right now," I went on, "what I want to focus on, is this whole relationship between aesthetics and spirituality, and what role art can play in religion. It's basically the kind of stuff I did for my honors thesis in college. Remember? The ritual theory and creative writing interdisciplinary distinguished honors stuff. Remember that? Nathan said, at the time, that if I wanted to work at expanding my paper, he thought I could turn it into a publishable article, a scholarly one, to submit to an academic journal in religious studies, I mean, which is pretty good for an undergraduate paper. I didn't pursue it because by then I'd moved out here... But I've always wanted to get back to those ideas. Maybe not in an academic sense, but in a more direct, personal way. So I've been writing about that a lot recently, and I think I might have some good material."

"Uh-huh.... So how was the dentist?"

I grinned. The brittle air shuddered against my freshly cleaned teeth (and the Sensodyne my dentist had recommended bumped against my thigh, nestled along with the free toothbrush in the bottom of my shoulder bag). Classic change in subject. I love my dad. Last week he sent me an email with the subject "Brrrr!" that was only two sentences long: "Boy is it cold outside today! Make sure you wear a scarf."

"O, you know how the dentist always is. Metal Versus Enamel, and all that scraping and prodding... But it was good, it was good. I'm healthy and happy, just like you want."

"Good," my father replied, "Good. Well, make sure you call your mother."

Spiritual Aesthetics: Part III

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The parallels that artistic endeavors have with prayer and magic are really quite remarkable. And yet, few people would argue that there is an inherent "irony" that makes the creativity of artistic work either impossible or ultimately meaningless. Why not?

Well for one thing, art is everywhere. Now I don't mean "everywhere" as in "everything or anything is art." What I mean is, we are surrounded by countless examples of art, every day, in countless aspects of our culture. Even when artistic or creative practice may seem strange, irrational or just plain silly (which indeed it is often believed to be, if stereotypes of the hippie-dippy or neurotic starving artist are any indication), the fruits of such labors are everywhere for us to see and evaluate for ourselves. Most of us, spiritual or not, have had moving experiences of art and can understand, at least to some degree, the persistent life of a truly great work that remains relevant and striking and meaningful, that transcends its original cultural context. In light of myriad examples and our own personal encounters with honest-to-goodness works of art, as well as seasoned artists and instructors willing and able to offer guidance and advice, it is easier for young aspiring artists to "fake it 'til they make it" (mimicking good habits of artistic practice, cultivating a self-image as a "creative type," and producing a lot of awful poetry or lopsided pottery before learning how to find their own voice and perfect their technique) without the problem of irony arising.

Unlike artists, however, today's practitioners of magic especially, and those who engage in serious prayer to a lesser degree, have the burden of striking out into the nonrational world of personal spiritual practice pretty much on their own, with very few experienced role models and even fewer widely-accepted examples of effective magical work to guide them. While it's no surprise when the work of a beginning artist sometimes flops or flounders, those first exploring magic and prayer are often quickly discouraged (by their own inner critics, if not more forcefully by the skepticism of others). A sense of situational or even cosmic irony can set in, as our circumstances or the Universe itself seem to brashly contradict our plans and perceptions. But in some ways, this feeling is not so much irony (despite Alanis Morissette positing otherwise), as it is frustration and doubt, and can be overcome with encouragement, self-discipline, persistence and patience.

On the other hand, I think deo would agree that when he speaks of irony, it is not the frustration of failed prayer or magic that he means, but the suspicion that even when spells and such seem to work, they do not work for the reasons we might believe. This can happen with art as well. Imagine, for example, that one night you and a friend decide to go out to a new club where live bands perform experimental jazz. Your friend sits there enraptured, apparently grooving to what, to you, sounds mostly like poorly-coordinated noise. You might wonder, "Is this really 'art'? Is my friend really having an aesthetic experience, or is he just 'fooling himself' into believing he is because of his expectations about jazz?" In order to answer these questions and put to rest this particular type of irony, we need to look more closely at the creative process itself and how it works, in science, in aesthetics, and in spiritual practices like prayer and magic.


The Scientific & Aesthetic Processes, With Helpful Visual Aids

In episode #38 of deo's Shadow, deo ponders the relationship between science and magic. He rightly comes to the conclusion that magic cannot hope to compete with science "on its own terms," that is, offering satisfying explanations for physical causal relationships in the material world. But he struggles to offer an alternative way of conceiving of magic (and, by extension, other kinds of creative spiritual practice like prayer), and from within this lacuna of adequate metaphor, irony--a sense that what we believe about the world is distinctly different from actual reality--is grudgingly born. In order to explore deo's scientific metaphor more closely, and discover a better theory for prayer and magic, I've made some charts. (Yes, that's right, charts. Aren't you impressed?)

This first chart (figure 1, left) is an illustration of the scientific method as it's most commonly understood and practiced. A scientist formulates an hypothesis that she wants to test, develops an experiment to test it, and gathers results by careful observation. From these results she works towards refining her original hypothesis, postulating about possible conclusions she can draw from her results, and the cycle begins again. The exact method of gathering results may vary, of course; sometimes, instead of setting up a particular experiment, a scientist (a biologist studying the behavior of black bears, for instance) may do observations in the field, recording events and their circumstances as they arise and from these compiling statistical data. But the process is essentially the same. If we think of the vertical axis of the chart as representing the continuum from the "mind-internal" realm of logic and abstract ideas to the "mind-external" world of physical reality, we can see that the scientific method cycles through both: the experiment and results of that experiment occur in the concrete, material world, while the scientist develops and later analyses her hypotheses using the rational, abstracting capacity of her conscious mind. Of course, the subconscious does play a role in the scientific process (albeit an oft ignored or underemphasized one), in getting the scientist from an abstract theory to a practical test of that theory, and again from the raw data of results to their hypothetical implications. But generally, the process of the scientific method focuses on the rational mind gaining theoretical knowledge about the physical world, moving primarily in a single direction, as shown.

This process works for science; however, a pictorial representation of the aesthetic process must be tweaked to suit (figure 2, right). One reason this is so, is the widely acknowledged fact that an "art object" (i.e. the physical painting, sculpture, text or performance) is not identical to the "work of art." Rather, a work of art must involve a person's aesthetic experience; in other words, an art object only becomes a "work of art" when it is engaged by a viewer (or listener, or what have you). In some ways, then, a work of art is always in flux, surfacing into realized existence when witnessed and then sinking back into a state of potential. (I realize this is a difficult concept to grasp, so some further examples might help. A musical score, for instance, is an art object, but it does not become a work of art until it is played, even if the musician himself is the only one around to hear it. Likewise, in my living room I have a whole shelfful of poetry books; the poems in these pages exist in a state of potential, as textual "art objects" lurking between the covers, but were I to open one of these books, flip to a page and read one of these poems, either silently or aloud, I would experience the poem as a "work of art." It helps to think of "art objects" as dense things that need to be "activated" like some science-fiction device, while the "works of art" are just that, works, activities, experiences that are going on.) Yet a work of art is not identical to or synonymous with a person's experience. The same work of art--the same song, story or drama--can be experienced in many different ways by different people, or even by the same person at different times and under different circumstances.

Thus we have an aesthetic process that is not a unidirectional cycle from abstract to concrete, internal to external, as we did with the scientific method. Instead, at each point in the aesthetic process, we have an intimate exchange. As an artist works to make a piece of art, he endeavors to move his own abstract ideas into the realm of the concrete, but as we explored in the last post, the concrete world of particulars has an equally strong influence on shaping the artist and his intentions. Meanwhile, a given art object will elicit experiences in those who witness it, but as we've already discussed, the experiences (past and present) of these witnesses will themselves influence the art object in transforming it into or engaging it as a work of art. In the creative process, the artist plays the part both of creator and witness as he shuffles and sidesteps towards a final product, sometimes allowing the medium of the work to guide him, and sometimes stepping back and evaluating his own experiences of the object to see whether or not he is expressing or communicating his intentions effectively. (Here we see how both interpretations of the relationship between artist and medium play a role in the process.) What we find is a fascinating, weaving triad of give-and-take (my Druidic self revels in this triple aspect!), and within all this, the "work of art" remains in a kind of misty state in the center, changing and responding, drifting in and out of realization.

Coming soon... "Spiritual Aesthetics: Part IV: Irony in Creative Practice"

Spiritual Aesthetics: Part II

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I ended the last post with the possibility that deo's sense of irony is justified, and magic is merely a kind of "fooling ourselves" to achieve pragmatic ends. However, I find this conclusion to be unsatisfactory, not exactly inaccurate but imprecise. Last year, I tried to tackle this issue by thinking about chance and coincidence and how we endeavor to "make meaning" from such apparent chaos through things like repeated ritual and intentional aesthetic action. While deo speaks of Paganism as "an inherently literary perspective"--insofar as it "moves the heart and stirs the soul" through the performance art of song, dance and ritual, as well as its living mythology--when I talk about aesthetics, I means something a bit different. (It may be that "aesthetics" is not even the best word, but I'll continue to use it for now.) For me, magic and prayer, and Pagan spirituality more generally, have less to do with the aesthetic experiences of the person viewing art, and much more to do with the experiences of a person making or creating art, the artist himself. From the time I began studying magic, it has always struck me as deeply involved with metaphors of art-making and creativity. Indeed, this is one reason why I sought out an "alternative spirituality" in Druidry, a path that acknowledges the experiences of the artist and bard, the poet and performer, as powerful metaphors for a life of Spirit.

Art & the Unconscious

One thing an artist knows for sure is that media put up resistance. A musician may imagine a melody silently in his own mind, and then sit down at his keyboard or guitar and discover that a particular chord progression or auditory effect simply will not work as he first conceived, while others fall into place as he experiments and explores the instrument. A sculptor may begin with a lump of clay or rock, intending to create this piece or that, and find that as the work evolves, it has a kind of "will of its own," a shape that wants to speak or move in its own way, regardless of the maker's original goals. Many artists and creative makers of all kinds have experienced that strange thrill of seeming to channel a "greater will" or inspiring vision, of feeling something "take over" and lead them to create works more deeply or complexly significant, more subtle or substantial, than they had first imagined. Instead of overcoming this media resistance with practice (as a good scientist might design ever more accurate experiments to test her hypothesis), the more experienced artists learn to trust this relationship with the medium of their art, listening as much as acting, following as much as imposing as the work takes form.

There are two ways (at least) to understand this relationship between artist and medium. One is to understand that the mind, especially the planning, conceiving, theorizing role of the mind, tends toward abstractions, while physical reality manifests in particulars. Hence, any time we make something, we are trying to move something from the mind (where it exists as an idea, an abstraction) into the physical mind-external world, where it absolutely must manifest as a particular. Even these ideas that I'm communicating right now are expressed through the particulars of each word, sentence, paragraph--that is, in the particular linear text as I'm writing and you're reading it. (As an example: I rewrote that last sentence several times in an attempt to express my intended abstract idea clearly, each time getting closer as the particular words changed; meanwhile, my idea itself became clearer as a result of this rewriting and struggling towards articulation. I'll talk later on about why this is important.) In short, every time we endeavor to move abstractions into the realm of particulars, we're bound to experience a kind of resistance, almost like a bottle-neck effect, a focusing or narrowing down (but also, because of the infinite interrelationships possible among particulars, an unexpected blooming or expansion when we make it to the "other side").

Another way to understand this relationship is to look at the mind itself. Most people are generally familiar with the concept of a "conscious" mind, and a "subconscious" or "unconscious." When artists talk about "being inspired" or feeling guided by some wiser voice, we might consider this to be an expression of their subconscious mind asserting itself. The unconscious mind is believed to be the heart of what people might call "intuition," the ability to sense or recognize patterns and to respond to them with more fluidity and flexibility than the deliberate control of the conscious mind. When making art or tapping into the creative capacity in other ways, the artist may begin with a conscious, deliberate idea or goal, but it is the unconscious mind--the aspect of himself that can intuit patterns and navigate the complicated traffic-jam between abstraction and manifestation--that guides him towards the final artistic expression.



Now think again, for a moment, about the activity of prayer or spellwork. We determined that these acts are different from the scientific experiment, in which an experimenter controls variables and incites chains of reaction exclusively in the mind-external world. Instead, magic and prayer rely on a paradox of "willed surrender," in which the practitioner both takes deliberate action and releases an intention into the chaos of the world, to be worked out by some "higher" or farther-reaching being or energy.* We can see, now, that this activity is startlingly similar to the activity of making art and then sharing that art with others.

The artist, like the supplicant or magician, formulates a goal or pursues an idea or concept. He does so by engaging with particular media and structuring that engagement in particular ways: he may have a lucky paintbrush or pen, a studio or office set aside and dedicated to his artistic work, even a few unrelated mundane routines (like washing dishes or sitting on a park bench counting the number of passers-by wearing hats) to ease him into each creative session. As a result of pursuing his creative goals, he encounters complications and messiness, in other words resistance, which shape the way in which his intentions manifest (utilizing these nonrational or nonsensical activities often busies the conscious mind, freeing up the subconscious to deal with this resistance more competently). At the same time, he finds that with a patient "willed surrender" to the process, the end result of his labors may provide greater insight than the original abstract goal could have encompassed. Once "released" into the world, performed or published or in other ways provided with a larger public audience, the work of art may also affect people in ways that the artist couldn't have predicted.

These similarities make art an excellent metaphor for certain aspects of the spiritual life, such as prayer and magic. And like all useful metaphors, the more we explore the comparison in depth, the more clarity it brings to some sticking points that crop up in discussions, of magic in particular, in the Pagan and Druid communities. One stumbling block is, for instance, the urge to define "magic" in such broad terms that the concept loses a lot of its practical meaning. People have often done this with art, as well, insisting that "anything can be art," especially if it's pretty and moves people. But this definition neither distinguishes artistic works from sentiment, propaganda or coincidence, nor provides a useful understanding for the aspiring artist about the actual creative process of which a given art object is merely the end result. Those studying magic for the first time may encounter similar difficulties when confronted with explanations that portray magical practice as either anything that "feels enchanted," or as the head-games of psychoanalysis blurred and complicated with mystical language. Beginners may become frustrated when broad, flimsy definitions fail to give them a working grasp of how to hone and improve their skills; they may even throw their hands up and declare the entire endeavor pointless.

All of this, of course, leads us back, again, to the problem of irony. When we find ourselves working with inadequate definitions and flimsy metaphors, can we "fake it 'til we make it"? Is this somehow disingenuous, or merely pragmatic? In the next post, I'll continue to explore the metaphor of art and aesthetics to see what it may bring to light with regards to this nagging trouble.

Spiritual Aesthetics: Part I

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The other day while at lunch, I overheard two men talking at a table nearby. One man said to the other, "So I prayed, you know, I asked God, 'Lord, if this woman isn't right for me, give me a sign. And He did, the next day...'" The man leaned in towards his friend and lowered his voice, so the "sign" he had received was lost in the surrounding murmur of the restaurant. But it got me thinking about prayer, magic and my recent contemplations on theology and irony.

It seems to me that the arguments against the efficacy of prayer and the reality of magic run much the same way: how can you know that what happened as a result of the prayer or spell wouldn't have happened anyway? And, if you don't know for sure that they wouldn't have, what is the point of praying/casting spells? Wouldn't it be just as effective to wait and see? These questions are not limited in their implications to the reality of magic and prayer alone, but concern the more general question of how a spiritual life--a life of spiritual activity in any form--can play a real, meaningful role in our practical, everyday lives.

Independence & Control

This, I think, is what deo meant when he talked about a "mind-independent universe": a universe that functions according to its own objective and established laws, laws that to some extent must be engaged on their own terms, not bent to the will or passing whim of any given person. According to this view, if prayer or magic are to "work" in any meaningful way, they must provide the tools for the practitioner to do something to external reality, not merely reframe the way in which that reality, as it happens, is interpreted. A scientist developing an experiment, for instance, may have a particular hypothesis in mind, and this will inevitably affect the way in which she arranges the testing of that hypothesis or interprets the results, but she is still actively engaging a "resistant" external reality, she is still doing something to a world that is (or that she perceives as being, in this context anyway) beyond her own mind. One important aspect of a scientific experiment is that variables are controlled and particular activities incited in order to observe the results. The scientist can say with a good degree of certainty that, if she hadn't lit that bunsen burner, that mixture in the beaker wouldn't have boiled over (this tells her the boiling point is apparently much lower than she hypothesized, but she can still be fairly sure that the mix wouldn't have boiled over on its own had she done nothing).

On the other hand, people who work spells or pray to deity are in some very specific ways relinquishing control, releasing their hopes and intentions into the mess of chance and circumstance or putting their faith in the capable hands of a "higher power," whatever that may be. When the man at the restaurant prayed to God to give him a sign, this act was at once an act of will (intentionally invoking the help of deity) and of vulnerability and release (relinquishing control of the situation to a supposed greater perspective). Likewise, a person who works a spell takes particular actions with specific intention (usually invoking deity, shaping energy through ritual acts, or both) while at the same time "releasing that intention" to work its own way out to manifest the intended goal. Because these acts involve a kind of paradox of willed surrender, there will always be a question of what really caused the results to manifest. Certainly doing nothing is also a form of relinquishing or surrendering control. Why make the willed effort, why organize it according to ritual or traditional recitations? If it was going to happen anyway, what role does the act of prayer or magic play?

My answer to this question is, in part: many things "happen anyway." In fact, things are "happening anyway" all the time. Often times, the same thing will "happen anyway" repeatedly, without a given individual either noticing or caring. Then again, many things don't happen at all, and their persistence in not happening can be painful, joyful, irrelevant, any combination of complex emotional and intellectual responses. Clearly, the correct frame of mind, or rather a mind or awareness that is receptive to certain possibilities as opposed to others, plays a large part in how we interpret all these happenings and their interrelationships. Acknowledging this simple reality--that our "frame of mind," for lack of a better term, inevitably affects how we interpret our experiences--may seem to lead us inevitably to the conclusion that magic and prayer really are merely ways of "changing your own mind," and don't actually do anything to change the external, objective or "mind-independent" world. If we accept this opinion at its most obvious, without probing any deeper, we may come to feel that needling sense of irony that deo mentions, engaging in a kind of play-acting, performing acts that we do not think have any meaningful effect on or relationship to the world outside our own brains.


Coming soon... "Spiritual Aesthetics: Part II: Art & the Unconscious"

Re-Membering Theology: Part V

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Part V: Paths and Parting Ways

Now, of course, deo and others might find this kind of talk a bit uncomfortable, even disconcerting. To speak of being moved by a theological story, rather than led forward by philosophical rigor towards truth and reality... And I would be the first to step up and agree that, yes, philosophical inquiry is vital and necessary. After all, how will we come to know ourselves and our stories without the perspective and provocation of philosophy? How could we find the rational common ground on which we share and compare these stories, the very activity that enables us to grow and learn about ourselves? Interfaith dialogue is only rendered meaningful and relevant when we have a standard of careful, subtle thoughtfulness with which to understand it--a common language, so to speak. Philosophy can provide that common language, because it is capable of teasing out (even if only by cataloguing) those threads that run through the lives of every human being of any religion: questions of existence and identity, ethics and aesthetics, epistemology and hermeneutics, to name only a few. In other words, philosophy, like theology, like the scientific method, like basket-weaving, has its own unique function, and this function is necessary, invaluable. But it only goes so far.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an "open letter" to deo in response to a deo's Shadow podcast on "Science, Skepticism and Scientology" (#38, the penultimate episode, it turns out). He replied to my post with a very thoughtful comment of his own, which at the time stirred up so many ideas in response that I never got around to responding at all (for which I hope he has long since forgiven me!). In his comment, deo wrote:

My mistake was always taking Paganism as a from of inquiry into the nature of the mind-independent universe, as if some deep metaphysical truths could be found within it. Paganism is not suited to such an inquiry. As you suggest, Paganism in general is suited to meaning-making, not ontological discovery. If you confuse these two as I had, Paganism looks like a jumbled mess, barren of value... or at least badly in need of repair.

Now, I'm not sure I agree that "Paganism is not suited" to an inquiry into metaphysical truths. (Or at least, I do not see, at first glance, why it is specifically less suited to it than any other spiritual or materialist worldview.) But I do understand what deo means when he says that it is a mistake to approach Paganism primarily as an inquiry into the mind-independent universe. For one, the very conception of a mind-independent universe takes a certain amount of dualism for granted, and Pagans are notorious for rejecting such dualism. (So, incidentally, are Christian mystics who, in a moment of exaltation or weakness, depending on who you ask, have been known to experience a union with the Mind of God which is not separate from the world which it creates and sustains, rendering the idea of a "mind-independent universe" sound downright silly.) This is not to say that it is not incredibly useful to have a dualistic perspective of the world in which we have, on the one hand, the objective universe and, on the other, the mind. Thank you, Descartes (among others), for shrugging off the restraints of a God-bound worldview and giving birth to the modern scientific method and all its subsequent, succulent fruits, like computers, evolutionary biology and the atom bomb. There are, of course, problems with believing that this is the only valid approach to understanding the world, but that's an old argument that I need not get into right now.

The point is that anyone familiar with deo's podcasts and posts should have seen this eventual "outgrowing" of Paganism coming: he has always demonstrated his love for philosophical thought, particularly as it's shaped by the Western philosophical tradition; he explains that it was in part Paganism's "promises of deep dark secrets," those hidden truths about the world, that attracted him to that spiritual tradition in the first place. (Whereas for me, such promises always sounded a bit hokey and remained, for a long time, a good reason not be another New Age fluff-bunny sucker.) In his response to my post last year, deo talked about the struggles of functioning as an "ironist," pursuing activities and maintaining beliefs for pragmatic reasons even though they apparently contradict one's meta-theory about the world. He writers more recently that his "entire time in Paganism was dedicated to making it more palatable to the skeptic," which is in some ways a very fair description of my own time within Christianity (looking back only a year or two, there are examples of such justification in this very blog). Having gained a bigger perspective on my own journey through Christianity into Druidry, I can appreciate these struggles and internal conflicts. Reading about his reasons for leaving Paganism behind, it seems that deo is not giving up or outgrowing anything, but rather growing into himself, becoming more true to his own natural inclinations, his own "inherent beliefs" in a mind-independent universe, the value of ontological exploration and the intellectual rigor it requires.

As I see the end of this series of posts in sight, I realize it has certainly not gone where I wanted it to go. Bad essays, bad! Heel. I have not, for instance, addressed the possibility that even if there are "ontological truths" about a "mind-independent universe," discovering those truths through careful rational thought does not guarantee that all people will react to them in the same rational, detached way (I was going to cite Myer's wonderful discussion of Immensities in his new book, The Other Side of Virtue, as well as R. Scott Appleby's fascinating text, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation). I haven't gotten around to discussing my current understanding of the Divine and its slow, slow evolution towards the possibility of polytheism, nor have I discussed why I, unlike deo, do not find myself burdened by a sense of irony when it comes to Paganism. In fact, I have only barely skimmed the surface of the whole point of all these posts, which is: traditions, including the tradition of philosophical inquiry, each have their own unique internal consistencies, and at times pursuing these paths requires that we commit ourselves to them completely and pursue them to their utmost end. After all, we can't all mull around the bottom of the mountain, admiring the diversity of trailheads. Sometimes, we must gird our loins, as they say, and pick one to see where it leads, what treasures it might have hidden around those bends and what views it may afford that we cannot see or imagine from the bottom. Such a commitment comes easiest when it is not dragged down by irony or internal disjoint, and so pursuing a path deeply along its natural course also demands that, along the way, we come to better know ourselves.

deo has chosen the path of non-religious philosophical inquiry that, for whatever reasons, has called to him for a very long time as the most fruitful and fulfilling. Because of that same call, though for different reasons, I have chosen the path of Druidry. As we each follow our unique paths, there will be times when the view spreading out before us will offer us new perspectives on those paths we left behind. These are times when we might look back and remember our own experiences on those paths, piece together the many disparate-seeming parts to form a new perspective of the whole and where it leads. That is, we will, hopefully, have moments in which we remember and re-member the theologies of our pasts. I have experienced this a few times recently looking back on the Christianity of my childhood, and I believe that deo, too, will have such moments looking back at his time as a Pagan and gaining new insights about himself and the spiritual movement. We should value these moments as moments of connection and understanding, and a place from which we can begin to talk with one another about the nature of the world.

Re-Membering Theology: Part IV

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Part IV: Changing Stories

It seems the debate online has died down a bit, just in time for a blast from my past: a practitioner of the Norvicensian Witchcraft tradition emailed me asking if I was still in contact with its founder, Rawna Moon. Unfortunately, I haven't communicated with Rawna in a few years. Her particular blend of "Christian Witchcraft" was my first serious step into a practical "Pagan-ish" nature-spirituality.

A year and a half before, I'd studied Neopaganism academically as part of a summer research grant, looking at ways in which it was shaped by and responsive to modern socio-cultural patterns. But I had not, at that point, ever considered becoming a "practicing Pagan" myself (though one of my interviewees suggested I'd make a good one). When I finally dipped a big toe in to test the waters--on that Candlemas (i.e. Imbolc) four years ago, among a half-dozen tealights and wafting incense--it was through a tradition that honored Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen, the Catholic saints, as its inspiration and spiritual role models. Rawna Moon described witchcraft as just that, a Craft, that anyone from any religious tradition could practice. Just as anyone--Christian, Buddhist, atheist--could practice medicine or basket-weaving or poetry. It was a way of interacting with the Divine, more creative and interactive than prayer, more personal and private than church service. I was okay with this (I was still in my good-example-of-a-Catholic mode), though over my year of practice I was never able to get comfortable with the term "witch." By the following February, I had come upon Druidry, completely by accident, and three years later, here I am.

It feels like a lifetime. Reading back over the journal I kept during that year of witchcrafting, I can see how much I have changed and grown--and yet my core ideas have always remained anchored in a few key truths. Those unwavering, inborn beliefs, I suppose. I may adapt my way of speaking and writing about them, tweaking them to fit the language of my current spiritual life moment to moment, but there they always seem to be, lurking, glistening, whispering to me. On the other hand, reading Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue, I find it strange and even at times amusing how Philip Johnson's essays provoke me into objections and disagreements (while I find myself nodding along with Gus diZerega). I have gained a new perspective on how Christians come across to non-Christians.

When I read his statement, for instance, that "some analogies [for God] are metaphysical while others are metaphorical," this seems like unnecessary semantic parsing. Later, when he explains that the immanence/transcendence of God is a paradoxical "both/and," this paradox seems lessened, dulled, by his explanation that God's transcendence is existential while its immanence is merely relational. It seems like a lot of bending over backwards to preserve the Otherness of the Divine, something which has never seemed necessary to me (we are, after all, surrounded by "otherness" because we are surrounded by uniqueness and diversity--why should Spirit be special?). Yet there was a moment when suddenly these language acrobatics coalesced and clarified, became a discernible dance of belief, and I understood again that Christianity has its own story and, for two thousand years, that story has hung together. It may not be my own story--perhaps it never really was--but it is a story that I can appreciate nonetheless.

I am still seeking my own story, the story that moves me and speaks to me. It is a project--an on-going process--in self-knowledge. Why do I believe some things and not others? Why does the generally Pagan-y belief in reincarnation come so easily to me, and yet I still struggle with the polytheistic belief in multiple gods and goddesses? As I've studied Celtic mythology more seriously over the past year, this question has continued to nag me. Am I not cut out for belief in many gods, just as I was simply not cut out for belief in a savior? I'm not sure. Of course, it may take years of exploration, study and practice before I know the answer. I'm okay with this.

Clearly deo and Mandy have explored and studied, and discovered--at least for now--that atheism suits them. I do not think--at least, I hope that it isn't so--that they believe themselves to have found the Truth-capital-T of which we will all one day be convinced. Personally, regardless of exactly how I conceive of the Divine, I cannot help but believe that the world is infused with Spirit, positively overflowing with it. I cannot imagine a purely materialist reality. I have had my own doubts about a personal God or god, or goddess, or gods and goddesses for that matter, but it has never led me towards an explicit atheism. Uncertainty, a sense of curiosity, sometimes an overwhelming loneliness--yes. But the story that atheism tells is too simple, too flat to speak to me the way the singing of sunlight and long grass and winding paths in the woods speak to me.

(It looks as though this series is likely to run its course in a fifth and final part. Meanwhile, here are a few more links to interesting and related blog posts by other Pagans and Druids that I've stumbled across since last writing.)

A Brief Note of Renewal

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There will be one or possibly even two more "Re-Membering Theology" posts before the series is finished (I actually quite like how the series is evolving and sprawling all over the place, incorporating much more than I had first anticipated). But before moving on, I just wanted to mention something that has also been on my mind a great deal recently: the atrocities in Gaza.

What is happening in the Gaza strip--what has been happening, not just for the past two weeks but for the past several decades--is wrong. It is not just wrong, it is monstrous. I cannot even feel my old familiar political angst over the issue. It's too clear-cut for angst. To suggest that the tragedy of the Holocaust and the genocide of Jewish Europeans can somehow excuse and justify a theocratic government (which is what a government is when it forces its democracy to confirm to an ethno-religious identity, as Israel's "Jewish democracy" does by driving out or exterminating the non-Jewish native population)--to suggest that this tragedy can justify such a government terrorizing an entire population... well. That sentence is so packed with anger and pain that I can't even finish it.

We must not confuse anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism (bigotry directed against Palestinians/Arabs, who are also Semitic in descent and religion, is also anti-Semitism, by the way). We must not confuse a denouncement of the Israel government with a rejection of the Jewish people. And we must not stand by and continue to allow the U.S. government to send billions of dollars in military aid to a government involved in its own little genocide. It is clear that the Israeli government does not care about the Palestinian people; it has illegally occupied land, uprooted families and destroyed livelihoods, allowed children to starve and imprisoned adults, and now it is bombarding the population ruthlessly in a pre-planned attack that needed no provocation. (In light of this abusive treatment, is it any wonder that groups like Hamas can find support? If you doubt for a moment that the average American wouldn't turn to such groups under similar circumstances, ask yourself how you justified the overthrow of not one but two foreign governments (Afghanistan and Iraq) in the aftermath of one American building destroyed on a sunny morning by people who weren't even from those countries.)

But as angry and disgusted as I am, I am also filled with hope as this new year dawns. The city of Pittsburgh is suddenly full of protest and debate. Students have gathered--indoors and sometimes in the streets--for the last several days to protest the massacre and show solidarity for Gaza and the Palestinian people. People here are talking, finally. Four or five months ago, I would never have believed that I could not only freely express my disapproval of America's blind support of Israel, but that others around me would be nodding and saying, "Yes, enough's enough." But all around me, people are watching the bodies of emaciated children and dismembered mothers carted out of the Gaza Strip, and they're wondering how long it takes for a child to waste away like that. Surely not twelve days. Certainly a forty percent civilian casualty rate is too high (when the Palestinian death toll is almost a hundred times that of Israelis). People have compared Gaza to an "open-air concentration camp"--and for once, they are not being bullied into silence by politically-correct cries of "Holocaust-denier!" and "never again!" For too long, we've allowed "never again" to mean "well, again, but not to us, to someone else this time." This is not acceptable, and people are finally waking up to that fact.

I feel a similar renewal in the Pagan community, in the wake of deo's podcast ending. Certainly not on the scale (either of tragedy or resulting discussion) as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but energizing and hope-filled nonetheless.

Out of hardship and doubt come rebirth and renewal, out of struggle comes community and perspective, and hopefully a fresh new beginning. I'm waiting for spring, in some ways vibrating with anticipation as the sleet slices through the wind outside and the streets and the trees glisten under a slick coating of ice. I am waiting for spring, waiting for the sun to climb, waiting for the warmth, waiting to feel new again. There is a struggle ahead of us. There always is. But there are also moments of gratitude and momentum, of elevation and even awe. Attending a gallery opening last night to raise money to send aid into Gaza, I overheard its organizers speaking, close to tears, about how they were running out of seating and unable to fit everyone in the modestly chosen lounge area. Sometimes it's enough to show up, to be present, to allow our presence and our engagement to manifest our care and our desire to change the world for the better. Afterwards, I walked home through the woods--each shadow highlighted and stark against the layering snow, a full moon glowing faintly among low clouds... It is winter. It is still very much winter.

But I trudge through the snow and the dark. And I didn't cry. I felt, for once, too lucky and too hopeful and too committed to cry.

Re-Membering Theology: Part III

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Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down, so I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, and I'll tell you how I became Priestess Sparklepony.

Part III: The Everyman Spirituality

Nah, just kidding. Where was I? Ah yes... It seems believing in a Savor just isn't part of my spiritual make-up. So it goes. But even now, this is a fairly recent realization about myself. You would think that, having been raised in a religious tradition to which salvation was a fundamental belief, I would have noticed sooner my basic disinterest in the idea (and instead run headlong for the hills that sang to me). You would think that, but you'd be wrong. Being part of a huge "poor Irish Catholic" extended family was simply part of my heritage, part of who I was, and growing up in a fairly small, fairly conservative area (blessed with farms and woods and vast stretches of open land that have since become strip malls) meant that almost everyone I knew just happened to be Christian, and those who weren't just happened not to be--without the threat of real diversity always looming, no one found it too much to accept warm-heartedly the three Jewish girls or the one kid who fasted for a month and prayed facing Mecca.

Yet not all of the Christians I knew were the Savior-needing types. There was plenty of diversity of personality; some, like myself, were grateful and happy and amazed by the world, we were the ones who sat in church and said "Praise be to God" like we meant it (but only ever mumbled "we are not worthy to receive You" half-heartedly). We didn't moan and worry ourselves over being sinners; we didn't lose sleep at night about going to Hell when we died. It was easy to get away with simply not thinking about these things. Everyone else took our healthy-mindedness to be the natural result of having the "right" religion. Obviously, a good relationship with God (i.e. through Christ) manifested in positive ways in a person's life. My childhood was pervaded by the sense of Christianity being the Everyman's religion--a religion that anyone could believe in, no matter who they were. Which is not to say that everyone should or ought to believe in it. But nothing stopped them. A Christian who studied physics or biology? Sure. A Catholic lawyer? No problem. A doctor, a philosopher, a horse-groomer, a dentist, a bricklayer, even a soldier--Christianity was the come-one-come-all faith. It didn't ask you to turn off your brain, it didn't ask you to condemn others, it didn't ask you to grovel or weep. All it asked was that you allow yourself to be saved. Such was the Christianity I was raised to believe in, which it took me so long to leave behind.

Which brings me, in a very round about way, back to the current murmuring roar throughout the online Pagan community (which may or may not be a community, though that's certainly a handy term for a bunch of people who all get together to talk about things, exchange ideas and debate about whether or not they constitute a community*). In some ways, the more or less all-accepting anything-goes attitude of the Pagan community reminds me a lot of the Catholicism I knew as a child. I still have conversations with my father sometimes, when he asks me what it is that I believe. Interconnection, compassion, love, creativity, inspiration, truth, justice, freedom, all those big, vague words that can move mountains or fall flat. Inevitably, these discussions end when he smiles and insists, "Well, you can believe all that and still be a Catholic!" And I smile back and say, "I think the Pope would disagree." Recent blog posts wondering sadly "what we [the Pagan community] did to lose" deo and other intellectuals remind me of my kind-hearted, well-intentioned father. It also reminds me of a Simpsons' quote (no, not the "everyone is stupid except me" one), the one where Rev. Lovejoy cries out to God what he did to lose his flock, and God replies, "What did you do to keep them?"

People leave spiritual paths for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the conflicts are deeply ingrained and apparent from the beginning, making a particular path insufferable for even the shortest time; other times, a creeping sense of disjoint or struggle comes over a person after years of traveling a spiritual path. And sometimes, a person simply loses interest, loses that sense of connection and ceases to find anything worth the staying. It seems to me that the very first thing we as a community need to think about, is: what do we do to keep the intellectuals and philosophical types? What is it, in other words, that Paganism offers? If it offers merely the appeal of the exotic and the strange, then it is unlikely to satisfy for very long. Likewise, if all it offers is a broad tolerance of everyone, without being able to articulate a specific worldview that is uniquely "Pagan," I think we will always feel slightly at a loss when people drift away or slowly lose interest. If the Pagan community is to hold onto and truly encourage its diversity, if it is to develop a philosophical depth and intellectual rigor, it must offer something more satisfying and more substantive than mere permission. It must offer something worth the struggle, worth overcoming the sense of disjoint, worth working through the boredom and disinterest and distraction that can so easily crop up for anyone in any spiritual tradition. I believe that Paganism can and does offer something, though what exactly that is may take a long time to fully understand.


*"Network" is such a computer-age word; social "networks," business "networks"... I prefer more organic metaphors.

Re-Membering Theology: Part II

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(Meanwhile, a few more posts have popped up... And I've discovered some very interesting things about Pagan goings-on in Second Life, which I'll write about later.)

Part II: Salvation/Illusion

As a child, I had a relationship with the Huge Generic Personal Spirit that I felt in the breeze over a sunlit field, the flock of gulls swinging towards the ocean's horizon, the quiet darkness that lingered like a loving presence and to which I prayed at night. Jesus, on the other hand, was just a cool guy, a role model, a man I'd heard stories about all my life--but deity? What did it mean to believe in good ol' J.C. as a god, as God itself? I still struggle with this question, and though I can tell people without flinching that I was "born and raised Catholic," sometimes I feel as if I know too much of its murky, complex and sometimes downright unlikely theologies to have any clear sense of what "being a Christian" actually means. I suppose this uncertainty is amusing, considering plenty of people have similar difficulty knowing what it means to "be a Druid" (since the ancient Celtic caste system which defined the original Druids no longer exists and so little information about it has survived).

In some ways, I was only ever truly Christian insofar as I didn't know some of the more obscure details of the religion. (On the other hand, this might very well be true for a majority of Christians; but that's a different debate, between clergy and laity.) Despite the myriad theologies and denominations of Christianity the world over, it is probably safe to say that the one core belief they hold in common is that Jesus Christ is a/the Savior, and that his crucifixion and resurrection in historical time was the vehicle or medium or manifestation of his saving act. This is what I had been taught as a child. Growing up, I elaborated vast and complex explanations for exactly what this belief in a Savior actually meant, especially how it jived with my personal experiential relationship with a Divine that seemed to leave no room and no need for salvation. Eventually, I settled on the mystery of the Trinity, locating that H.G.P.S. of fields and sunlight and oceans and darkness in the theology of the Holy Spirit; the transcendent quality of the Divine, I decided, was God(head) the Father/Creator; and the place of Jesus, the Christ, was that of Reconciler, the bridge between immanence and transcendence, that third unique element of human consciousness that expresses the universal through the particular.

For all its heady technical terms, for a while this spiritual story hung together quite well for me. But soon its metaphors began to take their toll. The image of Christ stretch between immanence and transcendence, between earth and heaven like some axis mundi, his tendons forever strained with the effort of holding us close as we threatened to spin away out of control, holding up the sky as Godhead teetered almost near enough to obliterate us--in short, the image of Christ on the cross, and the suffering aspect of love--became not only what kept it all together, but also what kept it apart. When before I had not understood the need for a Savior, so intertwined was the transcendent Divine with dancing manifest creation; now I looked to a savior who could not even save himself from the suffering of unconditional, selfless love, but could only submit to it in a kind of blinding, awe-filled sacrifice. I began to pity my god.

Meanwhile, the thought lurked in the back of my mind that, if God were the fundamental essence of our being and of existence itself, then salvation from a separation from that essence could only ever be a kind of illusion, or rather the waking up from illusion. Yet trying to believe in a Salvation had only led me into an illusion I hadn't held to begin with (perhaps this was why Jesus was so adamant about not leading the innocent children astray, though Catholicism would maintain there was no such thing). It seemed, in the end, that believing in a Savior just wasn't part of my spiritual make-up.

Re-Membering Theology: Part I

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The Pagan blogosphere is abuzz with Deo's and Mandy's recent announcement that they've outgrown Paganism.

I had originally begun this post in response to Johnson's and diZerega's book, Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue, which has brought my journey through Christianity into Druidry in a new and intriguing light. But over the course of the week, this once short little musing has sprawled and grown, shaped in part by the sudden conversation blooming online about spiritual identities and how we choose them. So as not to miss the boat (or perhaps I should say, in order to catch the wave before it peaks and I get left doggie-paddling my ideas back to shore), I've decided to break this post up into parts and begin posting them now, even though I have not yet finished writing. (Hopefully this will lighten the burden on readers, too, who may not want to read a novel-length dissertation on personal theology!)

Without further ado (or aoda, or obod), here is:

Part I: Story & Reflex

A friend of mine recently mused that theology, unlike philosophy, couldn't ever "get to the real truth," because it always had a few assumptions it simply couldn't question. Of course, philosophical traditions have their biases and assumptions as well, and postmodern philosophy even holds that there is no singular Truth-capital-T to get to in the first place. Still, there is a kind of indistinct line that we cross, from philosophy into theology, from rational ideas about the world to spiritual beliefs about it. Theologies hang together like good stories, if they hang together at all. I think one reason why I'm so fascinated by the study of comparative religions is that each tradition has its own unique internal consistency, each has its particular poetry that weaves through the basic beliefs about how the world is and who we are, and draws those beliefs together into a compelling, inspiring story.

The more I study and the older I get, the more I wonder if some beliefs we hold almost like a reflex, these ideas that somehow get into our heads and stay there, make a home, make sense. Reincarnation, for instance, was one of those beliefs for me. I can't remember a time before I believed in reincarnation, though I can remember a time when I willfully disbelieved in it because it "wasn't Christian." For some reason, the idea of cycles of birth, death and rebirth made intuitive sense when I looked at the world and all its wide, sweeping patterns. I felt older than I was, connected to something in the past, with the possibility of living on in the world, not in some dull heaven, after I died. Where did I first hear the belief that might explain these inborn sensations? It could've been anywhere. Why did it stick? I couldn't say exactly.

Growing up Catholic, I held a panentheistic understanding of the Divine, a God that was ever-present and essential to the very fabric of existence, and yet transcended what we were able to experience of the world. (I still remember the Sunday school class when our teacher held up the word "N-O-W-H-E-R-E" written boldly on a piece of paper and pointed out how God was both "no-where" and "now-here"... it left a powerful impression on my six-year-old mind.) I could not imagine anything that was not an aspect of this Divine Creator, and I felt that creation was not something over and done with, but an on-going, interactive, creative process: the Dancer dancing the Dance, to borrow from Yeats. All of these beliefs remain essential to my spiritual life even today, shaping my Druidic understanding of our souls' songs and the swelling, transcending harmony of which we're each a part. And yet it was only when I began to study theology formally in college that I confronted seriously for the first time the "problem of Christ."